The need for administrators to have large group skills has been
marked since the early 1990's in business, educational and health
settings. In most organizations professionals are dealing with
downsizing leading to increased responsibility to manage greater
numbers of employees and larger work groups. These challenges also
occur in educational activities due to the lack of training in large
group leadership and process.

    A special issue of the journal GROUP was published in 1993
including large group papers by Faith Gabelnick, Harold Bernard, Kay
West and Edward Klein. Advanced large group training weekends were
then held in Delray Beach, FL in 1995 and 1996 and in San Rafael, CA
in 1997.

    The Boston and Midwest Centers of the A. K. Rice Institute in
keeping with their tradition of applying theory to practice, are
sponsoring a weekend Advanced Large Group Workshop with Earl Braxton,
Ph.D., Rose Miller, M.S. and Edward Klein, Ph.D. as faculty. Earl and
Ed were faculty at the 1995-1997 Large Groups and all three are
experienced trainers and organizational consultants.

    The training will take place March 26-28, 1999 at the Duncan
Center in Delray Beach, Florida. The workshop, like previous ones, is
designed for 28 people who are interested in applying systems theory
to work settings. Preferably those with some exposure to experience
based learning models, including but not limited to A.K. Rice events.

    The workshop is offered to participants who wish to learn about
large group member (follower) and consultant (leader) roles.
Participants become part of a four person consulting team twice over
the weekend. All feedback from faculty is given publically with
members observing the interactions. The teams remain together for
three days enhancing individual and team learning. Colaboration among
team members is one issue faculty will address. In addition, team
functioning and their interaction with large group processes is a
second focus. This is an opportunity to:

*increase your understanding of the forces operating in large groups;
*refine your group facilitation skills;
*strengthen your consultative voice:
*experience the rewards and dilemmas of consulting team membership; and
*receive feedback in a constructive learning environment.

The fee is $500 for AKRI members and $550 for others. Please contact the
administrator, Anne L. Silva, 22 Mill Street, Suite 405, Arlington, MA
02476, PH: 781-643-0510; FAX: 781-863-0868; email  [log in to unmask] for
details.

A copy of the Brochure and application is available at:

http://www.uvm.edu/~mkessler/csgss/largegroup.html